David Moyes - The Tactician

@Ash_G
Likewise I would say in terms of looking at cm's (lampard, ramires, mikel, Matic vs Carrick, Clev, Fletch, Giggs and Fellaini)
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i think you forgot Oscar...and Mata at the start of the season. Moreover, fellaini and giggs barely played this season while carrick and fletch missed a number of games.
 
akash02 said:
Moyes did try to replace Evra as evidenced by his pursuit of Baines and then Coentrao.
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Yep. Mourinho would have just brought Coentrao and not looked for the deal to include Modric at 2for1 prices.
 
dev1l said:
@Ash_G

i think you forgot Oscar...and Mata at the start of the season. Moreover, fellaini and giggs barely played this season while carrick and fletch missed a number of games.
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Oscar and Mata take Nani and Kagawa. Doesn't matter how you look at it our squads were pretty even except we had a 16 point gap on them.
 
Mainoldo said:
Oscar and Mata take Nani and Kagawa. Doesn't matter how you look at it our squads were pretty even except we had a 16 point gap on them.
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nani? How many games was he available this season?
 
MDFC Manager said:
Additionally, Chelsea midfield might not be glamorous or spectacular but they do bloody better than our midfield.
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A central midfield selection from Fat Frank, Mikel, Ramires, Essien and a centre half like Luiz is no better than one of Carrick, Cleverley, Fellaini, Fletcher and our defender, Jones. Infact, individually, I think that our players are more talented. Carrick and Fellaini have both outperformed any of the Chelsea lot over the past few years at their respective clubs.

The poster you quoted is correct. Chelsea's squad has fundamental flaws and has done for years. The tactical brilliance of their manager has seen them through. A previously shaky defense with no top class centre back has been turned into a working one. The midfield has improved with Matic, but before that it was awful. They started with a great set of attacking midfielders, but the striking options let them down further.

People tear into our players in justification of Moyes, but if you take a look at the Chelsea squad, they're in desperate need for another central midfielder, a left back and a striker. Mourinho doesn't need to sell the entire squad to succeed, however.
 
Kag said:
A central midfield selection from Fat Frank, Mikel, Ramires, Essien and a centre half like Luiz is no better than one of Carrick, Cleverley, Fellaini, Fletcher and our defender, Jones. Infact, individually, I think that our players are more talented. Carrick and Fellaini have both outperformed any of the Chelsea lot over the past few years at their respective clubs.

The poster you quoted is correct. Chelsea's squad has fundamental flaws and has done for years. The tactical brilliance of their manager has seen them through. A previously shaky defense with no top class centre back has been turned into a working one. The midfield has improved with Matic, but before that it was awful. They started with a great set of attacking midfielders, but the striking options let them down further.

People tear into our players in justification of Moyes, but if you take a look at the Chelsea squad, they're in desperate need for another central midfielder, a left back and a striker. Mourinho doesn't need to sell the entire squad to succeed, however.
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i would remove essien from Chelsea as he was rarely involved and put in Oscar who is their playmaker. I agree that fletcher,carrick and fellaini can be a match for chelsea's midfield...problem is that all three missed a considerable no of games this season.
 
Kag said:
A central midfield selection from Fat Frank, Mikel, Ramires, Essien and a centre half like Luiz is no better than one of Carrick, Cleverley, Fellaini, Fletcher and our defender, Jones. Infact, individually, I think that our players are more talented. Carrick and Fellaini have both outperformed any of the Chelsea lot over the past few years at their respective clubs.

The poster you quoted is correct. Chelsea's squad has fundamental flaws and has done for years. The tactical brilliance of their manager has seen them through. A previously shaky defense with no top class centre back has been turned into a working one. The midfield has improved with Matic, but before that it was awful. They started with a great set of attacking midfielders, but the striking options let them down further.

People tear into our players in justification of Moyes, but if you take a look at the Chelsea squad, they're in desperate need for another central midfielder, a left back and a striker. Mourinho doesn't need to sell the entire squad to succeed, however.
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Seems like the opposite to me, people overrate our midfield to ensure all the blame is on Moyes. Why can't people accept that theyre both shit?

What you're also overlooking is Ramirez is a fantastic player perfectly suited for their set-up and our midfield suffers from the omission of such a player. Our midfield consists of bad Carrick and a player coming back from 2 years who the caf hated apart from his last two seasons.

Of course they also have a proper attacking midfielder in Oscar and have great wide players supporting them. Don't think there's much of a comparison all things considered
 
Kag said:
Carrick and Fellaini have both outperformed any of the Chelsea lot over the past few years at their respective clubs.
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That's not entirely true. Ramires has been just as good, if not, much better than Fellaini and any of our other midfielders and is a better player than Carrick, for me, although Carrick was a beast last year. Probably was even the best midfielder in the league, but Ramires wasn't that far behind.

I'd take Ramires over any of our central midfield options at the moment. Seeing as we insist on playing 4-4-2, that's half our midfield sorted already.
 
dev1l said:
@Ash_G

i think you forgot Oscar...and Mata at the start of the season. Moreover, fellaini and giggs barely played this season while carrick and fletch missed a number of games.
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Yeah so we've had injury problems with two of our outstanding players of last season (Carrick and RVP) and with our big signing in the summer Fellaini (I'm not a fan but he's proven himself a good PL player), but the actual squads are certainly comparable imo.

I thought I did mention Oscar and Mata in chelseas front 4, for me their main attacking 4 of Torres, Hazard, Oscar and Willian (or Mata) vs ours at the start of the season (based on who I think are our best players), RVP, Rooney, Nani and Kagawa/Januzaj, for me there isn't much between them except Mourinho has picked the 4 he wanted and got them playing in a way that got the best out of the group, discarding Mata to do so, where as Moyes has set up in such a way that imo doesn't get the most out of anyone.

Form has certainly been an issue as have injuries, in the latter case though some of it can be attributed to the manager just as good form in Rooneys case can be attributed to Moyes. But in terms of the base quality of the players I really don't see any significant gap, except as I said between which team is getting more out of their players.
 
Moyes was a central defender while Fergie was a center forward. Probably that influences a bit of their tactics.
 
Smores said:
Seems like the opposite to me, people overrate our midfield to ensure all the blame is on Moyes. Why can't people accept that theyre both shit?

What you're also overlooking is Ramirez is a fantastic player perfectly suited for their set-up and our midfield suffers from the omission of such a player. Our midfield consists of bad Carrick and a player coming back from 2 years who the caf hated apart from his last two seasons.

Of course they also have a proper attacking midfielder in Oscar and have great wide players supporting them. Don't think there's much of a comparison all things considered
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No, because that wouldn't be objective. It would be entirely stupid, infact. The reality of the situation is that our midfield needs work. It needs one, probably two, excellent players in there and that is seldom disputed. However, the ones we do have, have been hung out to dry in Moyes' Rooney-centric 442, and they are all good players that could very easily perform better under a different system. I've said it so many times, but if Leon Britton, Jonathan De Guzman and Jonjo Shelvey can play an attractive brand of football whilst keeping the ball then so can our lads. Are they brilliant? No. But neither are Chelsea's lot.

As for Ramires, he isn't a "fantastic" player at all. He's quite good, quite effective. He needs to be replaced with somebody that can pass the ball if Chelsea are to progress and I suspect that will happen some time soon. His work rate and energy is admirable, but both Chelsea and United need more.

All in all, my comparisons are entirely justifiable. As for attacking midfielders, well, I raise you Mata, Kagawa and Januzaj. All excellent or potentially excellent players. A youth-driven Adnan aside, sadly, we haven't, and I don't think we will, see the best of them any time soon. David Moyes - The Tactician.
 
It's funny how Moyes keeps talking about us needing to be compact, but his wing-oriented system leaves the middle open when we lose the ball. And Rooney not dropping back creates massive space in the middle. It feels like I've said the same thing since October. I understand his decision to start Young, but Valencia?
 
I just think it's utter madness to play such an immobile central midfield pairing. Even the most impotent of attacks seem to just saunter through our midfield.
 
Just skimming the first page...

marjen said:
He'll set us up in a 4-2-3-1 in most matches I'll imagine. He liked to play that way at Everton. I'll also imagine that he would want to play with a bit less tactical rigidness in terms of our wingers. Players like Kagawa and Nani, cutting infield and linking up with our full backs overlapping them are surely on the cards.
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Cina said:
he'll play in a way that's more reliant on our midfield and less reliant on our wingers, which is why we'll definitely sign some fecking midfielders, whoop whoop.
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SilentWitness said:
I think Moyes is definitely one of the managers who can get the most out of Kagawa when played wide. He knows how these sort of players work and how best to use them.

Skimmed through the thread and saw that people were impressed with the high pressing. That's probably one of the key aspects he will bring to the club during his era. You wouldn't need to worry about players fatigue i don't think either, as at Everton we always seemed to be 110% until the end of the game.
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Brightonian said:
Certainly demonstrated that he's more than capable of matching up to The Great Mourinho et al today. We were unlucky not to get the goal that our control of the match probably deserved. He'll be disappointed that we didn't, but probably pleased that we played well overall.
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shaggy said:
Yeah agree with that Brightonian. I must admit there was a small part of me worried we'd pulled a Hodgson, but thankfully that appears to just be a horrible nightmare.
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Platato said:
It appears what I have read about Moyes' tactical tendencies are proving correct. We may not win as many trophies but our football will be exhilarating. Moyes has won my respect in that aspect. Tactically, thought we were spot on today and I hope to see more of it.
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Sad, really isn't it. So much hope for the guy, but he just ain't up to it.
 
MoneyMay said:
It's funny how Moyes keeps talking about us needing to be compact, but his wing-oriented system leaves the middle open when we lose the ball. And Rooney not dropping back creates massive space in the middle. It feels like I've said the same thing since October. I understand his decision to start Young, but Valencia?
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I think the idea is that Young (or someone else) plays inside from the left trying to add a .5 to our 2 man midfield. Unfortunately with Ashley Young's passing range you barely notice it having much of a difference. He mostly plays simple passes and the slightly adventurous ones like his reverse pass forward to RVP go awry.
 
He genuinely seems to just be trying to do the same things Sir Alex always did. There has been no real change in our style of play whatsoever (aside from every once in a while where he clearly instructs us to constantly send crosses in).

One of the very few positives I took from Sir Alex leaving was the possibility of seeing a change in our style of play. I don't mean this as a dig at Sir Alex's tactics at all either, just that it was an opportunity for some change. Instead, we're seeing essentially the same things, just at a much lower level.
 
gza the genius said:
He genuinely seems to just be trying to do the same things Sir Alex always did. There has been no real change in our style of play whatsoever (aside from every once in a while where he clearly instructs us to constantly send crosses in).

One of the very few positives I took from Sir Alex leaving was the possibility of seeing a change in our style of play. I don't mean this as a dig at Sir Alex's tactics at all either, just that it was an opportunity for some change. Instead, we're seeing essentially the same things, just at a much lower level.
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That's the real trouble. There's just nothing to explain the drop in points because we haven't changed our system. I can understand the drop in points if we had radically changed the system and we are trying to adjust to a new one.
 
gza the genius said:
He genuinely seems to just be trying to do the same things Sir Alex always did. There has been no real change in our style of play whatsoever (aside from every once in a while where he clearly instructs us to constantly send crosses in).

One of the very few positives I took from Sir Alex leaving was the possibility of seeing a change in our style of play. I don't mean this as a dig at Sir Alex's tactics at all either, just that it was an opportunity for some change. Instead, we're seeing essentially the same things, just at a much lower level.
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Essentially yes, but instead of a mix of play in the final third, we now in many games aim to cross it in as quickly as possible until coming to a head in the fulham debacle where Moyes was rightfully publicaly slaughtered for it, another massive issue from last year to this is the speed in our passing, whenever we had a sluggish 1st half under Sir Alex he would often comment on the need in the 2nd to pass quicker, get some tempo in our game... whereas our passing now is very lethargic and methodicly stagnant at all times.

and yes 100% agreed whenever I thought of the day of SAF leaving, the one thing that got me excited was the possibility to experience new ideas and modern patterns, now? I'm actually jealous when I watch other teams.
 
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The word "tactician" should be removed from the thread title. It should be replaced by "the Scot who asks midfielders not to go past the centre circle"
 
MoneyMay said:
It's funny how Moyes keeps talking about us needing to be compact, but his wing-oriented system leaves the middle open when we lose the ball. And Rooney not dropping back creates massive space in the middle. It feels like I've said the same thing since October. I understand his decision to start Young, but Valencia?
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You have mate. The distance often beteen the attack and midfield is ridiculous.When we lose the ball up top the opposition have some distance to travel before they encounter our midfield and at this point the fullbacks are way ahead of play and in Evras case really struggling to get back into position.We do not play as a unit and we are so easily countered.
 
FineYoungCasual said:
Just skimming the first page...


Sad, really isn't it. So much hope for the guy, but he just ain't up to it.
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You cruel man. shaggy's comment that he was scared that we would have pulled another Hodgson but that was proven just a part of his horrible imagination was the best followed by Platato's 'exhilerating football'.
 
Cina said:
Oh lord...

I never wanted him here, I was just trying to be positive, turned out to be more HIV positive though.
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You're doing the same with Fellaini. I remember when you said that you thought that he will be just another Young but now you are pretty positive.

Where does the legend about your negativity comes anyway? You're the most positive person in the Caf (even more positive than Twigginator). You made a 180 degree for Moyes and Fellaini after they signed for us.
 
Revan said:
You're doing the same with Fellaini. I remember when you said that you thought that he will be just another Young but now you are pretty positive.

Where does the legend about your negativity comes anyway? You're the most positive person in the Caf (even more positive than Twigginator). You made a 180 degree for Moyes and Fellaini after they signed for us.
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It's called alcohol. I was basically negative about all things not-Nani a few years ago cause I was drinking my bollock off and constantly depressed. Since I started working things have changed. No way am I as positive as Twigg though, he's on another level.

I didn't see any point in not being positive when we got them, that's why I was. We got him as our manager so it was important to back him and hope he succeeded rather than to just give in to my fears and be depressed about the appointment all season.

FWIW, Fellaini will be a good player for us, I genuinely believe that. I just at the time did not want us spending £27m on the guy.

Also, nobody is as positive as Twigg, well, maybe @Pogue Mahone but in a more "f**k you if you don't agree with me" way ;)
 
Cina said:
It's called alcohol. I was basically negative about all things not-Nani a few years ago cause I was drinking my bollock off and constantly depressed. Since I started working things have changed. No way am I as positive as Twigg though, he's on another level.

I didn't see any point in not being positive when we got them, that's why I was. We got him as our manager so it was important to back him and hope he succeeded rather than to just give in to my fears and be depressed about the appointment all season.

FWIW, Fellaini will be a good player for us, I genuinely believe that. I just at the time did not want us spending £27m on the guy.

Also, nobody is as positive as Twigg, well, maybe @Pogue Mahone but in a more "f**k you if you don't agree with me" way ;)
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I also think Fellaini can be a decent player for us. But my issue with that signing was the amount. He will never live up to 27m. That's one of our most expensive signings in history.
 
rpitroda said:
I also think Fellaini can be a decent player for us. But my issue with that signing was the amount. He will never live up to 27m. That's one of our most expensive signings in history.
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"Decent", maybe. But I have serious doubts Fellaini will ever be a decent player for us, the word "decent" being properly understood. His genius is found exclusively in attacking the box searching for high balls, nothing else. He's not a playermaker, a deep lying midfielder nor a defensive midfielder. Do we really want to see Fellaini become United's target man in a wide crossing game? I hope we haven't descended to that level of desperation.
 
Gannicus said:
"Decent", maybe. But I have serious doubts Fellaini will ever be a decent player for us, the word "decent" being properly understood. His genius is found exclusively in attacking the box searching for high balls, nothing else. He's not a playermaker, a deep lying midfielder nor a defensive midfielder. Do we really want to see Fellaini become United's target man in a wide crossing game? I hope we haven't descended to that level of desperation.
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I've always been a fan of Fellaini and I think he could be a quality deep lying midfielder/DM like Carrick. His price tag was over the top though; the board probably felt the fans would really want a big money signing - little did they know said signing would be used a stick(microphone) to beat the new manager with.
 
FFS the first few few pages are comedy gold. "Exhilarating football" under DM. :lol:
 
We were intrigued more than anything in the early pages of this thread, I suppose the first few games were sound enough tactically but I fear now that maybe that was down to the previous regimes tactics still been ingrained in the players. :lol:
 
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